- December 16, 2025
The classes include three field trips.
Birds can perch on wire on a windy day because their talons automatically lock if they lean forward or back.
Song birds are getting louder because they are competing with a louder world.
There are many fun and fascinating facts about the 10,000 species of birds in the world, and several of them were discussed Nov. 11 in a meeting room at Prince of Peace Catholic Church in the Beginner Bird Watching Workshop.
There are three classroom sessions in the workshop, and three field trips to places like Tomoka State Park, Ponce Inlet and Lake Woodruff.
“We have a waiting list,” said Becky Tate, of Halifax Audubon, which sponsors the lessons. The classes are usually held each fall, a “high season” of birding, because of all the migrating birds in the area. Tate said winter and spring are also good for birding.
She said the six-course workshop provides a good way to get started in the popular hobby.
She took the class eight years ago after retiring and continues to learn about birds today, she said. She said she was a “backyard birder,” and decided to take time to learn.
“And you’re with very, very nice people,” she said.
Christine Dann said she enjoys the beauty of the birds as well as being out in nature.
“I like the intellectual challenge of identifying them,” she said.
Chuck Tague, a naturalist who lives in Ormond Beach, leads the workshop. He and his wife, Joan, are co-chairmen for the Halifax Audubon field trips.
Tague said the classes have helped spread the popularity of birding.
“We want to get people involved and appreciate birds and the environment,” he said.
Halifax Audubon has 20-25 field trips a year throughout Central Florida. Information can be found by visiting halifaxaudubonas.org.
Facts learned at the recent workshop include:
—The brain of a woodpecker does not float it fluid, so it does not get a concussion.
—The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal in the world, diving at 200 mph.
—There are hundreds of thousands of gulls on area beaches this time of year and there are six basic species: laughing, herring, lesser black back, great black back, ring bill and Bonaparte’s gull. The gulls can also be seen flying in huge flocks back to the beach in the evening from the Tomoka Land Fill and various fast food parking lots.
—The road runner, often seen being chased by a coyote, is a cuckoo.
—There is such a thing as a yellow bellied sap sucker. And unsurprisingly, it drinks tree sap.
—There is a difference between songs and calls. A call is a single sound to signal an alarm or communicate. A song, only performed by the male, is complex and is for courtship or marking territory.
—The scrub jay, Florida’s state bird, is the only bird that never leaves the state of Florida. They can be seen at North Peninsula State Park and sitting on the telephone wires at nearby Highbridge Park.
